“I say—­Karl!”

He came to her.

“I am not angry.  I know quite well what you mean.  You were speaking of the fundamentals.”

“I was.”

“But how about me?  Am I to have no importance save in my relation to you?”

“You cannot have your greatest importance save in your relation to me.”

She looked at him long.  Her eyes underwent a dozen changes.  They taunted him, tempted him, comforted him, bade him hope, bade him fear.

“We must ride home,” she said at length.

“And my question?  I asked you if you were willing to stay here with me?”

“The question,” she said with a dry little smile, “is laid very respectfully on the knees of the gods.”

He turned from her and swung into his saddle.  They pounded home in silence.  The lines of “The Last Ride” were besetting her still.

     “Who knows what’s fit for us?  Had fate
     Proposed bliss here should sublimate
     My being; had I signed the bond—­
     Still one must lead some life beyond,—­
     Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. 
     This foot once planted on the goal,
     This glory-garland round my soul,
     Could I descry such?  Try and test?”

She gave him no chance to help her dismount, but leaping to the ground, turned the good mare’s head stableward, and ran to her room.  He did not see her till dinner-time.  Honora was at the table, and occupied their care and thought.

Afterward there was the ten-mile ride to the station, but Kate sat beside Honora.  There was a full moon—­and the world ached for lovers.  But if any touched lips, Karl Wander and Kate Barrington knew nothing of it.  At the station they shook hands.

“Are you coming back?” asked Wander.  “Will you bring Honora back home?”

In the moonlight Kate turned a sudden smile on him.

“Of course I’m coming back,” she said.  “I always put a period to my sentences.”

“Good!” he said.  “But that’s a very different matter from writing a ‘Finis’ to your book.”

“I shall conclude on an interrupted sentence,” laughed Kate, “and I’ll let some one else write ‘Finis.’”

The great train labored in, paused for no more than a moment, and was off again.  It left Wander’s world well denuded.  The sense of aching loneliness was like an agony.  She had evaded him.  She belonged to him, and he had somehow let her go!  What had he said, or failed to say?  What had she desired that he had not given?  He tried to assure himself that he had been guiltless, but as he passed his sleeping village and glimpsed the ever-increasing dumps before his mines, he knew in his heart that he had been asking her to play his game.  Of course, on the other hand—­

But what was the use of running around in a squirrel cage!  She was gone.  He was alone.

XXXI